Grand Designs & 5% Deposit — why I think homeownership is overrated
I’ve given up on the idea that I will one day become a homeowner. At the grand age of 23, I understand that buying a home, particularly in the UK, is the most overrated activity. Despite being completely obsessed with consuming property buying and home renovation media. From Grand Designs to A Place in the Sun, I would much rather watch middle class people buy and restore homes to their former glory than save up for a deposit.
Maybe it’s knowing that homeownership is merely a fantasy, one that I can continue to dream of before I even start working full-time. Choosing a career in my teens that means I’ll be in education for most of my 20s so getting a full-time job isn’t a feasible option. Because this is a wrong choice, financially, I am years behind in the race to save up for a deposit and prove that I am worthy of a bank loan. But mortgages have never appealed to me anyway because why would I want to be indebted to a bank? Not when I’ve worked so hard to avoid ownership by means of credit and remaining as debt free as I can manage. For those of us who come from close encounters with debt collection agencies, we don’t aspire to be sitting in hundreds of thousands of pounds of borrowed assets. Personally, if something as unobtainable as a mortgage can be taken away after redundancy, it isn’t worth the hassle. Mortgages conjure up images of sitting tight in jobs I don’t like just to ensure my home doesn’t get repossessed by the bank spilling everything I’ve ever worked for down the gutter.
Location, Location, Location is one show that perfectly encapsulates a few of the reasons why homeownership is unattainable. The couples and individuals property hunting have seemingly “regular” jobs, however, their budgets say otherwise. Yes, they may be teachers or nurses but the 10 years they spent living in London was actually an opportunity for them to save up to become cash buyers. It only becomes funny when they reveal the large sum of money gifted to them by overgenerous parents. And Grand Designs, a show I’ve avidly watched since my early teens, brings me so much joy I can’t even begin to describe it. I can trace back my obsession with property, homes, construction, and renovations to Grand Designs. I crave an escape from the small room I live in so I spend an inexcusable amount of time scouring Rightmove and Zoopla for houses that I never intend on buying. Spending so much time designing my future home down to the decor on the walls, watching Grand Designs fills a void that desire to set up camp. Flirting with the idea that maybe one day I’ll be able to afford to live on land that I bought from the state. Maybe then I could fill it with cheap porcelain cutlery and too many house plants that I’d give away to friends and family once I get a cat. Maybe then I’ll call somewhere home instead of constantly living in limbo. Maybe I do want to buy a forever home. But then I remember I’m watching a tv show, despite its good efforts I’m still apprehensive about buying a house, and for good reason.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a scheme to help more young people buy houses by lowering their deposits to 5%. But like the Help to Buy scheme, this recent endeavor by the British government only helps those already closer to buying homes instead of increasing accessibility to lower-income individuals and households. For many people, myself included, homeownership is just a pipedream, I would rather work towards becoming financially secure.
